Whoever has his foe at his mercy, and does not kill
him, is his own enemy:—­With a stone in
his hand, and the snake’s head convenient, a
wise man hesitates not in crushing it.

Certain people have seen this maxim in an opposite
point of view, saying: “It were wiser to
delay the execution of captives, inasmuch as the option
is left so that you can slay, or you can release them;
but if you shall have heedlessly put them to death,
the policy is defunct, for the opportunity of repairing
it is lost":—­There is no great difficulty
to separate the soul from the body, but it is not so
easy to restore life to the dead: prudence dictates
patience in giving the arrow flight, for let it quit
the bow and it never can be recalled.

LVII

A learned man who has got into an argument with the
ignorant can have no hopes of supporting his own dignity;
and if an ignoramus by his loquacity gets the upper
hand it should not surprise us, for he is a stone
and can bruise a gem:—­No wonder if his spirit
flag; the nightingale is cooped up in the same cage
with the crow:—­If the man of sense is coarsely
treated by the vulgar, let it not excite our wrath
and indignation; if a piece of worthless stone can
bruise a cup of gold, its worth is not increased,
nor that of the gold diminished.

* * * *
*

LX

Genius without education is the subject of our regret,
and education without genius is labor lost. Although
embers have a lofty origin (fire being of a noble
nature), yet, as having no intrinsic worth, they fall
upon a level with common dust; on the other hand, sugar
does not derive its value from the cane, but from
its own innate quality:—­Inasmuch as the
disposition of Canaan was bad, his descent from the
prophet Noah stood him in no stead. Pride thyself
on what virtue thou hast, and not on thy parentage;
the rose springs from a thorn-bush, and Abraham from
Azor (neither his father’s name, or fire).

LXI

That is musk which discloses itself by its smell,
and not what the perfumers impose upon us:—­If
a man be expert in any art he needs not tell it, for
his own skill will show it.

LXII

A wise man is, like a vase in a druggist’s shop,
silent, but full of virtues; and the ignorant man
resembles the drum of the warrior, being full of noise,
and an empty babbler:—­The sincerely devout
have remarked that a learned man beset by the illiterate
is like one of the lovely in a circle of the blind,
or the holy Koran in the dwelling of the infidel.

LXIII

A friend whom they take an age to conciliate, it were
wrong all at once to alienate:—­In a series
of years a stone changes into a ruby; take heed, and
destroy it not at once by dashing it against another
stone.